Wednesday, September 30, 2009

You see them stalking the sidelines every time you flip on a game, but how well do you know where some of the game’s top coaches got their starts? Most coaches spend their entire lives coaching in some capacity, but a few of the all-time greats have gotten some interesting paychecks outside of football. Take a look at some other jobs coaches have held.

This isn't just a "gee-whiz" observation; understanding how and why we behave irrationally is important. If you don't understand how these irrational behaviors are triggered, the marketing weasels will use them against you.

One of the more underrated benefits of the internet era has been access to quality radio style programming at any time of the day or night. Just like DVRs have freed us from having to adhere to rigid television program schedules, podcasting has enabled us to carry excellent radio with us for listening at any time. I struggle with not having enough hours in the day to listen to it all, because there is truly so much quality out there. Here are 15 podcasts in particular that will make you a smarter, more well rounded, and better informed person.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Have you ever wanted to know about the history of auto-erotic pleasuring? Have you ever laid awake at night wondering where and how the dildo, or the Japanese hand-job-giving robot was invented? Well, look no further -- we have decided to put together an illustrated time-line that is sure to make sense of self-pleasure's storied past. This would make for an excellent school presentation:

While we wait for Dick Cheney, the Pentagon, or the CIA to release evidence that "enhanced interrogation techniques" produced useful, truthful intelligence that could not be obtained without torture, neuroscientists are weighing in on how likely torture is to elicit such information—and they are not impressed.

It's become the conventional wisdom that the tortured will say anything to make the torture stop, and that "anything" need not be truthful as long as it is what the torturers want to hear. But years worth of studies in neuroscience, as well as new research, suggest that there are, in addition, fundamental aspects of neurochemistry that increase the chance that information obtained under torture will not be truthful

Thursday, September 24, 2009

As a society, we are increasingly interested in finding new ways of transportation that are cleaner for the environment. New concepts in mass transit seem to be one of the main ways to move toward this future. However, many people (especially in the U.S.) don't want to give up the privacy of individual travel. As a result, it might be that so-called "sky pods" may provide the answer.

Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called "unambiguous evidence" of water across the surface of the moon.

The moon remains drier than any desert on Earth, but the water is said to exist on the moon in very small quantities. One ton of the top layer of the lunar surface would hold about 32 ounces of water, researchers said.

Megaproject… even the word sounds big! As technology evolves to meet the demands of our dreams, more and more wondrous feats of engineering will transform our world; and us with it. These 7 amazing engineering wonders push the envelope of what can be accomplished on Earth – and someday, beyond.

The 90's were a golden age of cartoons. We had a blast putting together the 20 best, and we're sure this list will inspire some discussion. Our only criteria was that the cartoon had to start in the 90's, meaning a couple of very late in the decade entries were still eligible. We did make a small exception for one show, but we think you'll agree it was warranted. Enjoy!

Note: This is not a typical post for this sight but it has been awhile since I posted an art piece. I grew up on these and they are art so...

Monday, September 21, 2009

A well executed Japanes tattoo (Horimono or Irezumi) is without peer in complexity and meaning. This traditional art form that has evolved in Japan from as long ago as 11,000 BC has gone through many iterations, the more recent of which is its association with organized crime in Japan – the Yakuza.

This association no doubt came about as tattooing evolved from a method of identifying criminals and possibly even the lower classes hundres of years ago to becoming fashionable among those same people – the exact people from whom the modern Yakuza evolved. As the evolution of attitudes continued, tatooing became an integral part of the underworld in Japan as far back as the 17th century. The true evolution of this fashion, however, goes back much further.

Friday, September 18, 2009

It's considered to be one of the more recent innovations to help the hapless traveller. But the satnav system may not be as modern as we think. According to a new theory, prehistoric man navigated his way across England using a similar system based on stone circles and other markers.

The complex network of stones, hill forts and earthworks allowed travellers to trek hundreds of miles with 'pinpoint accuracy' more than 5,000 years ago, amateur historian Tom Brooks says. The grid covered much of southern England and Wales and included landmarks such as Stonehenge and Silbury Hill, claims Mr Brooks, a retired marketing executive of Honiton, Devon.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

A Maori legend about a giant, man-eating bird has been confirmed by scientists.

Te Hokioi was a huge black-and-white predator with a red crest and yellow-green tinged wingtips, in an account given to Sir George Gray, an early governor of New Zealand.

It was said to be named after its cry and to have "raced the hawk to the heavens".

Scientists now think the stories handed down by word of mouth and depicted in rock drawings refer to Haast's eagle, a raptor that became extinct just 500 years ago, shows their study in The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Hidden assassins and witless patsies. Shadowy cabals. Secretive meetings in smoky rooms. According to conspiracy theorists, the truth is out there -- it's just being kept from the public by secret societies out to control the world (or save it). Call it apophenia (humans' tendency to see patterns in random data), or call it realities too awful for the rest of us to acknowledge -- for whatever reason, conspiracy theories have been a part of human culture since Cain suspected God and Abel had a racket going. Here are some of the more common conspiracy theories still in play today. We'd give you the real story behind them all, of course, but then we'd have to kill you.

Novelist Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol, is doing for the Freemasons what its predecessor, The Da Vinci Code, did for the Catholic Church's Opus Dei—showering new fame, and new fictions, on a brotherhood that's already catnip for conspiracy theorists.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

You stayed up too late last night, so you grab a latte on your way into work. When you feel yourself slump at 3 p.m., you raid the vending machine. You're so tired at the end of the day, you can barely get home for dinner, let alone make a trip to the gym.

Sound familiar? Many sleep-deprived people drag themselves through the day, skipping physical activity and relying on sugary pick-me-ups. But these habits don't fight off sleepiness for long. And even worse? Over time, they can contribute to weight gain or, at the very least, sabotage your efforts to lose those last few pounds.

For the past 14 years, photographer and filmmaker Jill Heinerth has been exploring underwater caves around the world, from lava tubes off the coast of North Africa to icebergs in the Antarctic. Wired.com recently caught up with Heinerth to talk about some of her most exciting cave diving moments, as well as the recent technological advances that have made cave diving easier, safer and more accessible to recreational divers. This gallery showcases some of Heinerth’s best underwater images and includes captions adapted from our conversation with her.